In the past few issues of Car Craft, we've been transforming our project Cheap Street Chevelle from junker to jewel. It started out as a non-running heap, but since then we have upgraded various aspects of the powertrain to obtain improved quarter-mile performance as well as better looks. In reality, as we hopped up one aspect of the car, another (weaker) part of the car broke--which is pretty typical of how street machining goes in the real world. For example, we added a higher-lift camshaft, but then fell victim to valve float, because the stock valvesprings were worn out.

Such is the case for the stock TH350 transmission in Cheap Street Chevelle. We rebuilt the engine, added a 2800rpm torque converter and ran sticky rear tires, which generated quicker e.t.'s at the dragstrip but overtaxed the stock transmission. Shortly after our dragstrip fun, the tranny began to slip while driving the Chevelle around town.

Keeping with the theme of Cheap Street Chevelle, we decided to rebuild the stock tranny ourselves with good parts rather than replace it with a high-dollar, full-race unit. We ordered a B&M TransKit (PN 30229) that had all necessary rebuild goodies; plus, the parts are much beefier than stock, which will be perfect for our street/strip Chevelle. In this feature article we don't cover every aspect of the rebuild, but we do give you a majority of the tech info needed to do the job. To further help you in your rebuilding efforts, a complete, detailed, easy-to-follow 24-page instruction manual is included with the B&M TransKit.